Two couples have exchanged the same Christmas card for 38 years

Nancy White

Thursday

Dec 24, 2009 at 12:01 AMDec 24, 2009 at 9:15 PM

For two couples — whose friendship has endured nearly five decades — they have a twist on the Christmas card tradition. Martha and Bob Hurtig and Eleanor and Nick Waterman have been exchanging the same Christmas card for 38 years.

The exchange of Christmas cards is a tradition many take part in this time of year. It’s a chance to recognize new and long-standing friendships and celebrate the season.

For two couples — whose friendship has endured nearly five decades — they have a twist on the Christmas card tradition. Cohasset’s Martha and Bob Hurtig and Scituate’s Eleanor and Nick Waterman have been exchanging the same Christmas card for 38 years.

The card, which is yellowed and a bit worn with age, has been passed between the two couples every holiday season since 1971. The cover, which is adorned with a colorful jar of candy, is perfect because it harkens back to their initial Christmas gift exchange many years ago. In the early years of friendship, a stout glass candy jar, which they still have, filled with goodies like candied orange peel (by Eleanor) and Swedish nuts (by Martha) was passed between the families.

Although the tradition of the card has been honored for nearly four decades, there is little fanfare around it.

“We store the card very unceremoniously in a plastic bag,” Martha said. Martha, who Eleanor says is better at storage, is the keeper of the card. A few times, they admit, they had some trouble locating the card.

Inside there is a timeless sentiment fitting both the tradition it carries on and the couples’ friendship: “There is no time quite like Christmas for remembering the friendships we cherish and there are no wishes like the old tried and true one – Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.”

The binding of the card has been taped together, but even a part of the tape has worn through. Hurtig, who volunteers at the Cohasset Historical Society, is hoping to put some archival tape on the binding to preserve the card for more years to come.

Written on the right-hand side of the card are the oldest signatures next to the year with the name of a charity. In lieu of a gift each couple gives a donation to their favorite charity. This year the Watermans gave a donation to the Scituate Food Pantry and the Hurtigs to the Salvation Army.

So many years have gone by that the signatures go from the inside-right cover to the back of the card and within the last few years to the inside left-hand portion of the card.

“The other thing the card does is we don’t need to go Christmas shopping!” Martha says with a laugh.

They said the card idea was partially borne out of a desire to be more eco-conscious.

“We were thinking about recycling long before it became mainstream,” Eleanor said.

However, they admit it takes a special friendship for this tradition to work and endure – and the Watermans and Hurtigs have that. They talk, joke and reminisce with each other easily, as only old friends can and do.

They don’t have a set routine for the card exchange, sometimes it gets signed before Christmas, other times it waits until after. The couples do make an effort to spend New Year’s Eve and Superbowl Sunday together.

“This is a friendship that’s lasted a very long time,” Nick Waterman said. When they figure out the math, it’s been 48 years since the wives serendipitously met.

Eleanor Waterman was walking with her young son from the post office back home (in the 1950s residents had to go pick up their mail, it wasn’t delivered, they explain) and it had just started to rain. Martha, heading home herself, pulled over to offer the mother and son a ride.

The rest, as they said, is history. From 1961 to 1971, the Hurtigs and the Watermans lived “a block and a walk” away from each other. Both couples had boys that were about the same age, and later they had daughters about the same age.

Their families – the Hurtigs have five children and the Watermans have three children – grew up together. They’ve spent weekends in Maine and Nantucket and can share dozens of funny stories about each other and their children.

In 1971, the year the card tradition began, the Hurtigs moved farther away, but it did not impact their friendship.

“They say distance makes the heart grow fonder,” Eleanor said.

They stayed in touch through frequent visits, bike rides to and from and their children’s friendships.

They have one bit of advice for all those who exchange Christmas cards or anything else that passes along a sentiment between friends or family all year long: put dates on everything.

“It’s fun to look back on it,” Eleanor said. “It only gets better as you get older.”

Contact Nancy White at nwhite@cnc.com.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.